Hoboken

“The mayor wants to have it both ways; he wants to withhold information from the public and then he gets angry when someone resorts to the courts to get the information the public is  entitled to.”

HOBOKEN - Councilwoman Beth Mason tabled her proposed salary Assemblyman/Councilman Ruben Ramos: Politicker file photoand benefits ordinances at tonight’s council meeting, a move that likely did nothing to diminish the prolonged stare-down from now until next year’s mayoral election between Mason and her opponents.

Broken into two reform pieces, the freshman councilwoman’s proposed ordinances would scrap benefits and limit to $1 the council salaries of council people who hold more than one public job.

She sent them to committee tonight, but not before rousing her opposition.

Mason’s antagonists see the prospective mayoral candidate’s measures (backed up by Councilman Peter Cunningham) as an attempt to bait At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano and humiliate Assemblyman/At-Large Councilman Ruben Ramos, the governing body’s lone dual elected office holder.

Cammarano was out of town. Ramos fought back.

At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano: Politicker photo 

HOBOKEN - Even members of his inner circle swear that they don’t yet know whether Mayor Dave Roberts plans to run for a third term in 2009.

Whatever his intentions, other Hoboken diehards are surfacing. No one’s announced yet, but fierce political battles now will undoubtedly have political consequences next year in this city stung by the embarrassment of a state takeover of its finances.

There are all of the usual speculations surrounding possible candidates. A sighting of former Councilwoman Carol Marsh at a municipal meeting provokes the conclusion in come corners that she’s definitely running. A recent inundation of photos of Mayor Roberts on the Hoboken website prompts someone else to opine that Roberts is running - bet on it.

Businessman and neighborhood kid made good Frank "Pupie" Raia?

Of course, he’s running, say Hoboken insiders. He always runs, and no doubt he will perpetuate his longstanding animus this year with Councilman Michael Russo, who clubbed him last year in their 3rd ward showdown.

This is a victory for New Jersey citizens' rights to access to government information

“The mayor may have so little regard for taxpayer money that he considers $108,000 nitpicking, but to most hard working people in the city, it’s a lot of money,”

“I have examples of individuals using city-owned cell phones for calls to Las Vegas, Hawaii and West Palm Beach, Florida,  I don’t know that the city is doing business with anyone in Las Vegas or Hawaii or why the calls are made during work hours and why taxpayers should be paying for such calls,” said Mason    

  MASON’S OPEN RECORDS SUIT FORCES SETTLEMENT WITH SCHOOL BOARD 

The Associated Press reported this morning that Gov. Jon Corzine couldn’t vote at his Hoboken polling location early this morning because the voting machines were not working.  Election officials are not accustomed to running elections in February – should New Jerseyans expect more problems like this?

HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY -- After last evening’s forum, Christopher Campos today repeated his call to the Hoboken City Council to submit the recently released Hoboken Southwest Parks Coalition plan, SW6: A Greener, Greater Hoboken, to city planners to take under advisement and for incorporation into the next version of the Southwest Redevelopment plan to be submitted to the Council.

Kenneth Del Vecchio is an unapologetic, and unabashed, conservative. He has also taken the lead in advancing the most liberal of all business sectors in the country, the film industry, right here in New Jersey. DelVecchio has conceived, produced and delivered the state’s most successful film festival in the most anti-business state in the union, the Hoboken International Film Festival. <